Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire, England, in the foothills of the Pennines, 8.6 miles (14 km) west of Leeds, and 16 miles (26 km) north-west of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the City of Bradford metropolitan borough.

Bradford forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area, which in 2001 had a population of 1.5 million and is the fourth largest in the United Kingdom. Bradford itself has a population of 529,870, which makes it the seventh-largest city in the United Kingdom and the third-largest city in Yorkshire and the Humber after Leeds and Sheffield.

Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bradford rose to prominence in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world". The area's access to a supply of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of Bradford's manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment; Bradford has a large amount of listed Victorian architecture including the grand Italianate City Hall.

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